Inventions That Killed Businesses

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Email

Email is a ubiquitous part of everyday life for most people in the industrialized world. In a bygone era sending correspondences required having stamps and envelopes on hand, finding a U.S. Postal Service mailbox to send the letters and then waiting long stretches of time for a response.

Thanks to email, the most fleeting thought can now be sent instantly to multiple parties, and waiting to hear back even 10 minutes is sometimes considered agonizing. With the type of instant gratification email provides, it is unsurprising the U.S. Postal Service has seen a precipitous decline in business since 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.